Cynthia Pussinen

Cynthia Pussinen recently departed her role as the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) for Spark Therapeutics, Inc., a member of the Roche Group.  As CTO, Cynthia oversaw pipeline technical and process development, preclinical and clinical manufacturing and the commercial manufacturing and distribution of LUXTURNA® (voretigene neparvovec-rzyl), the first gene therapy approved in both the United States and the European Union. 

Cynthia also had responsibility for Spark’s fully integrated supply chain and operations, quality assurance, analytical and quality control, engineering and scientific facilities, capital projects, corporate facilities and real estate, information technology and environmental, health, safety and sustainability.

With more than 25 years’ experience leading global organizations and high performing teams in the life sciences industry, Cynthia’s expertise spans the drug development continuum from research through commercialization. She has led the development, licensure and commercialization of more than fifteen new medical therapies for patients globally, including Obizur® (Antihemophilic Factor (Recombinant), Porcine Sequence), Eraxis® (anidulafungin) and ZMAX® (azithromycin).

Prior to joining Spark in 2021, Cynthia served as the Global Vice President and General Manager, Life Sciences and Specialty Chemicals for Honeywell International, Inc. It was there she developed and executed comprehensive product development and commercialization strategies for significant, sustained growth and innovation across multiple verticals including process automation and artificial intelligence (AI).

Cynthia was the Executive Vice President, Technical Development, Operations & Supply Chain for Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc and spent 6 years with Ipsen Biomeasure and Ipsen Biosciences, the U.S. subsidiaries of Ipsen. There she served as President | CEO, leading all of Ipsen’s support functions, R&D, clinical and technical development and operations. Prior to that she served as Ipsen’s Vice President of Technical Operations & Development.

Early in her career Cynthia spent more than 18 years at Pfizer in a variety of increasingly responsible leadership roles including portfolio and project management, global logistics and supply chain, pharmaceutical sciences and as a scientist in medicinal chemistry discovery.

She earned a Master of Science in R&D management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry, with a minor in engineering from the University of Connecticut. Pussinen is lean/six sigma certified, is recognized as a mentor through the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) and was honored by WEST (Women in the Enterprise of Science and Technology) as a recipient of their Giving Back award.